I have been working with a variety of students, in hands on activities. Much of this is throughout labs involving microscopy and spectrophotometry and small group activities with their mitosis/meiosis projects.
One of my teacher’s teaching styles is very interesting. His overall demeanor is sometimes intense, and is not afraid to ask questions. He tries to get his students to think outside the classroom, through current events or (for example) actually going outside and looking at a tree. An attribute of his that can be beneficial or detrimental is his ability to tie in the students’ seemingly unrelated questions into his lesson. The detrimental part is that this ability is easily wrought into an unrelated tangent, flowing from his strong opinions and ideals. I think that some of the brighter students in his classes have taken advantage this at times, to the point where a whole lesson was devoted to global warming rather than protein structure!
I find that he maintains an interesting relationship with his students. The majority of the students appear to like him, and feel comfortable around him. For my high school observations, my CT tends to have a sarcastic and witty sense of humor, which some, although not all of the students have enjoyed. A few of the students in the class however, especially those who are on the shyer side are (in my opinion and view) not incredibly comfortable with his actions and humor. Since he is very charismatic and outgoing, I wonder if he just has trouble relating to those students who are not quite as charismatic as he is; who sometimes appear to be overwhelmed by his intensity.
The students appear to know where the power structure in the class lies, since he asks for respect, and it seems to be going well. There have been a few struggles, especially in the class that he labels as “difficult”. Being his “biology B” class, (a lower-level biology class) he seems to have set up a mindset that these students are going to be unmanageable. Since he has set this up, I find that it is going to be difficult to implement my own strategy for behavior management and class work, since his expectations for the class are lower, which if you look closely in comparison to the other classes that he teaches, it is obvious. One example is the labs that he does between the three biology classes. Here, in both “biology A” classes, he taught them how to make their own slides of an onion root-tip, that they grew as an experiment to observe the effects of weed-killer(in this case, roundup) that is supposedly “safe” to the onions. We then stain the slides, and compare the growth of the root tips to a control, by looking for mitotic divisions present in the cells. The corresponding lab for the “biology B” class, we observed prepared slides of onions, and then sketched out in colored pencil on a paper what they would see under the scope. They were bored as was I; which consequentially led to bad behavior on the part of the students. I remember echos of another teacher saying for me to “start planning your lesson for the ‘smart’ kids, assuming that everyone is capable of the work that they are, and work your way down if other students cannot keep up.” Here, my CT should have remembered that, and kept the lesson just as interesting, even if it means a bit more effort and structured instruction.
Reflections:
I apologize first off to whoever decides to read my journal entry here, since much of the writing is observation combined with reflection, and is rather difficult to separate.
Overall however, I hope to maintain an equal positive outlook on my classes. The students in each class should be treated equally, regardless of perceived ‘intelligence’ level. Certainly, I will adjust my lessons accordingly to the dynamics of a particular class, yet I will not adjust my attitude or intensity; to me, that is not an acceptable behavior. To change a behavior, I have learned that you have to look and see if you must first change yourself.
Class Topic: Biology/ Biotechnology
Grade: 10/ 11&12
Observed by: Lauren Paetznick- observation of J.Johnson at SKHS
Observations:
I have been working with a variety of students, in hands on activities. Much of this is throughout labs involving microscopy and spectrophotometry and small group activities with their mitosis/meiosis projects.One of my teacher’s teaching styles is very interesting. His overall demeanor is sometimes intense, and is not afraid to ask questions. He tries to get his students to think outside the classroom, through current events or (for example) actually going outside and looking at a tree. An attribute of his that can be beneficial or detrimental is his ability to tie in the students’ seemingly unrelated questions into his lesson. The detrimental part is that this ability is easily wrought into an unrelated tangent, flowing from his strong opinions and ideals. I think that some of the brighter students in his classes have taken advantage this at times, to the point where a whole lesson was devoted to global warming rather than protein structure!
I find that he maintains an interesting relationship with his students. The majority of the students appear to like him, and feel comfortable around him. For my high school observations, my CT tends to have a sarcastic and witty sense of humor, which some, although not all of the students have enjoyed. A few of the students in the class however, especially those who are on the shyer side are (in my opinion and view) not incredibly comfortable with his actions and humor. Since he is very charismatic and outgoing, I wonder if he just has trouble relating to those students who are not quite as charismatic as he is; who sometimes appear to be overwhelmed by his intensity.
The students appear to know where the power structure in the class lies, since he asks for respect, and it seems to be going well. There have been a few struggles, especially in the class that he labels as “difficult”. Being his “biology B” class, (a lower-level biology class) he seems to have set up a mindset that these students are going to be unmanageable. Since he has set this up, I find that it is going to be difficult to implement my own strategy for behavior management and class work, since his expectations for the class are lower, which if you look closely in comparison to the other classes that he teaches, it is obvious. One example is the labs that he does between the three biology classes. Here, in both “biology A” classes, he taught them how to make their own slides of an onion root-tip, that they grew as an experiment to observe the effects of weed-killer(in this case, roundup) that is supposedly “safe” to the onions. We then stain the slides, and compare the growth of the root tips to a control, by looking for mitotic divisions present in the cells. The corresponding lab for the “biology B” class, we observed prepared slides of onions, and then sketched out in colored pencil on a paper what they would see under the scope. They were bored as was I; which consequentially led to bad behavior on the part of the students. I remember echos of another teacher saying for me to “start planning your lesson for the ‘smart’ kids, assuming that everyone is capable of the work that they are, and work your way down if other students cannot keep up.” Here, my CT should have remembered that, and kept the lesson just as interesting, even if it means a bit more effort and structured instruction.
Reflections:
I apologize first off to whoever decides to read my journal entry here, since much of the writing is observation combined with reflection, and is rather difficult to separate.Overall however, I hope to maintain an equal positive outlook on my classes. The students in each class should be treated equally, regardless of perceived ‘intelligence’ level. Certainly, I will adjust my lessons accordingly to the dynamics of a particular class, yet I will not adjust my attitude or intensity; to me, that is not an acceptable behavior. To change a behavior, I have learned that you have to look and see if you must first change yourself.
Class Topic: Biology/ Biotechnology
Grade: 10/ 11&12
Observed by: Lauren Paetznick- observation of J.Johnson at SKHS